“Art & Paintings” has always fascinated me since my childhood, in general, if we are to ask this simple question What is Painting? The answer would be- Human creative skill and imagination, in a visual form such as painting or sculpture. The art of the Upper Paleolithic represents the oldest form of prehistoric art, since then there have been plenty of modern artist like Vincent van Gogh for example, you don’t have to have lived in the same century to know that he was a troubled young man but what he painted now sells at tens of millions of dollars. Then take Picasso, I always felt that some of his drawings looked exactly like drawings by pre-school children, and yet his work is thought to be the work of a genius and is priceless. There was something in all this that I didn’t understand and I wanted to find out.
The great Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh and countless others consider Oil paint which is applied on canvas their favorite. Watercolor which is a favorite among many beginners is not as easy as it sounds as I, unfortunately, found out. However, it is great fun. Acrylic where you have to use water to dilute looks a lot like an oil painting but dries much quicker. Of course, you can use drawing mediums like pencil, pen, and charcoal in the art which are great fun and much less expensive. Many professionals use them. The other odd thing about art is it is sometimes driven by art movements although it seems a simplistic way of looking at it. Impressionism for example was an art movement that began in the 1860s. It is done outdoors and features prominent brush-strokes, brighter colors, ordinary subject matter, and an effort to capture the changing effects of light. Its giants were mostly French painters like Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas although it soon found admirers and followers worldwide. Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, and Paul Gauguin were the most famous Post-Impressionist painters, though they differed greatly in style
The first thing you have to know is that there are different art mediums each with its unique features.
Here are some of the well-known art/Paintings mediums
Tempera (paint mixed with cohesive materials)
Ink Painting, Kolam (Hindu), Cave, Egyptian, Camaieu, Gond, Aerial Perspective, Gouache Paintings, Action, Casein, Digital Paintings & Graphics, Oil Painting, Fresco (Sigiriya), Acrylic painting, Glass Paintings, Watercolors, Charcoal, Pastels, Anamorphic, Sand Painting, Spray Paintings, Collage Paintings, Graphite pencils, Colored pencils, Pen and ink, Encaustic Paintings, Miniature Paintings, Kalamkari Paintings, Warli Paintings, Pahad Paintings, Madhu Bani, Batik (Sri Lanka).
Different countries have their native art styles and techniques example, the Sigiriya Frescoes were painted on the western surface of Sigiriya Rock, located in central Sri Lanka. Painted thirteen hundred years ago, they were the highlight of a massive palace complex built in 480AD by King Kasyapa is a classical example.
Paintings have different drawing styles, because of the numerous variety of art techniques evolved over the years by human imagination and the evolution process of human civilization.
Some of the more common styles are:
Modernism, Impressionism, Abstract Art, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Chinese Art, Japanese style, Indian Style, Sri Lankan Art (Sigiriya)
Finally, The first person to use it in the form we know today (“beauty is in the eye of the beholder”) was an author called Margaret Wolfe Hungerford. She included the phrase in her book ‘Molly Bawn’ (1878). It is another way of saying that beauty is subjective. “It’s true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
